With movies like Santa’s Slay, and Jack Frost already under my belt, I figured that this would be another silly horror movie involving Christmas. I was wrong, way wrong.
Funny story about this movie; my sister posted a trailer for a Krampus movie on Face Book. From the looks of that trailer, I knew that I wanted to check it out. Months later when I went to start doing this marathon, I had forgotten what the title was. When I looked for it on iTunes, this movie was what came up. I figured it was probably the same one and downloaded it. Never knowing that it was a completely different movie than the one she had posted previously about. Oh well. It was still a horror movie and still had Krampus in it.
A Christmas Horror Story is more akin to something like “Tales From The Hood” than it is Black Christmas. By that I mean it’s not one story, with only one arc and resolution. A Christmas Horror Story is four stories (maybe five depending on how you look at it) that are all being told at the same time, but the characters in each have no real interaction between each other, save one.
It’s Christmas Eve in the small town of Bailey Downs and DJ Dan [William Shatner] is doing his annual double shift working the local radio station. As his show goes on, as kind of the one constant, there are four other stories all running in the background. Each of the stories has their own cast of characters, and their own story resolutions they are chugging along toward.
Quickly running down the stories while not spoiling anything is easily done in short synopses.
Story One follows a group of teenagers that are headed to a catholic school where a double murder happened on the prior Christmas Eve. They are looking to investigate the murders for a school project.
Is a story about a family of well-to-do assholes. The dad is looking for money from a relative that no one likes but has lots of money. (They are told the initial story of Krampus.)
A police officer takes his wife and son to the woods to get a Christmas tree. In the process their son gets lost and when they get him home he seems different.
Santa’s elves become infected by something and they become zombies hell bent on killing everyone, especially Santa.
Christmas Horror Story was decidedly way more brutal and serious that I first had anticipated. Granted the subject matter is about Santa and an Evil anti-Santa figure, but they way in which the movie handles each subplot as well as the main story is very serious. Never once do the characters or the story ever dip into the campy style, wink and nod, horror humor. I wouldn’t say it scared me at all, but I was impressed to see the story handled in such a self-serious manner. Even William Shatner, who’s kinda known for poking fun at himself and his acting style, plays it real straight in this. That in and of itself is an accomplishment.
Given the way the movie jumps around from story to story, it’s kind of impressive that it never manages to be, well… unmanageable. All but one of the stories wraps up in a satisfying, if not surprising way. I won’t spoil anything, but revealing really anything about them would only detract from their own reveal by the end. I did purchase this from iTunes and when I discovered that I had purchased the “wrong movie” I was a little bummed. However, after watching it through, I’m happy that I took an unknowing leap of faith. This style of movie (multiple stories) isn’t for everyone, but I enjoyed the horror aspect wrapped up in a Christmas setting. Also, Santa is kind of a bad ass in this. I can dig on that.
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